This is a development of the reply that I made the other day about getting a good Google response to your blog.

Search Engine Marketing is a must if you are to going to get people to view any website. Nowadays everyone seems to be an SEO specialist, at least they do in Exeter and Devon, I imagine it is the same throughout he UK.

I am more aware of the abilities of WordPress than other blogging platforms so this is what I will use as my reference point. I have to say that I am totally enamoured with WordPress, I think it is great, but first a bit of general knowledge.

WordPress comes in two distinct flavours

1. .com Most people start with a free WordPress blog which you can start straight away and I would recommend you to go and sign up. If you blog a for a while and chose to migrate to self-hosted this can be easily done.
2. .org If you have access to hosting then self-hosted blogs open up a world of possibilities. You will need hosting with a database which is necessary to store all of the posts, images, comments and information about the site. My hosting supplier now throws one in with even the starter hosting package. You don’t really need to understand about databases (MySQL) but it can be quite interesting looking around, seeing how all of the data and information is organised.

WordPress can be thought of as a modular entity.

1. Core
   The site itself, everything that is needed to make it work. This includes a user friendly interface that will allow you to update the site without knowing about web deign.
2. Themes
   There are a huge number of available themes that make the basic WP blog look different (1 column, 2 column, colours styling etc.)
3. Plugins
   These add to the functionality of the blog, they make it do more things, (display images in galleries, add contact forms, etc. )

read more>

It’s important to ‘put your best foot forward’ whether you are a small local organisation in Devon or Arts Council England.

It’s great to see an organisation such as the Arts Award embracing Twitter. Although Twitter typically appeals to an older demographic than the target audience of the Young People’s Arts Award it is still an excellent avenue to extend marketing range.

However Exeter’s Design Credo noticed that the Arts Award logo wasn’t looking too good on their Twitter page, the logo looked dull and flat, worse still when it had been uploaded part of it had been clipped. This was a concern because DesignCredo had designed it and had a professional investment in ensuring the logo appeared as it had been designed to look.

It didn’t take too much time to re-draw it and submit a Twitter friendly version and now things are looking as they should. If you are trying to upload images that have been designed it is a good idea to check with your graphic designer for advice. It isn’t rocket science but it is easy to get wrong.

You will probably find that the designer will be more than willing to help, after all, we have an investment in seeing our work presented as it was intended.

I recently shared the experience of the Brit Awards with a number of people on Twitter including Cheryl Kerl. Now, I would like to make it clear, I am not knocking the Brits, Zeberdizzie and Florence (all a bit Magic Roundabout?) were great etc… But, I am happy to share the funny side and am a little intrigued to be doing it with others who I have never met.

Some time ago whilst working in a Pupil Referral Unit I, along with the deputy head teacher, Googled ‘LOL’. Shameful but true, we were trying to decipher a bullying letter that was thrown in the bin. On the evening of the Brits I can genuinely say that I did LOL on a number of occasions. For me this is one level that Twitter works, just a bit of fun, Mr Brydon, just a bit of fun.

Hei an Ah wasn’t meimin eitha. It’s them new TVs that yiz have. They sort uv make the pickchaz jorky leike man pet an that. Cheryl Kerl

Ah’m ganna sack mei horstyleist t’neet! Coz wei didden Ah get a well mentil horsteel leike Ladee Gawgaw and Lily Allen’s got? Cheryl Kerl

The day after the dialogue continued on Facebook. A friend commented that she didn’t get the British love of the ‘simeon one’. I at once knew that she was referring to ‘he who nods to camera with furled eyebrows’. My what a Facebook onslaught this opened up from offended fans.

Twitter adding value to your business

However if you choose Twitter can add value to your business. Recently attention has been drawn to the potential security risks of Twitter with the Please Rob Me site. I suspect caution rather than fear is the best response here but the simple point is that these micro blogs are searchable, and they can and do get searched.

Last week I attended a local networking group. I was invited to attend because one of the group’s active members had read my tweets and as a result looked at this blog. She messaged me directly through Twitter and commented how she thought that the down to earth approach was what the group were looking for. This has to be seen as a result even though initially the contact presented opportunities rather than confirmed business.

This weekend I uploaded a website for Techserv, a CNC Plasma company in Yorkshire. The site was uploaded on Saturday, I have included a twitter feed and within a day Techserv’s Twitter feed was being followed by CNCInformation. Again this has to be seen as an opportunity. Techserv trade globally, they have a machine suitable for the education market and CNCInformation are discussing amongst other topics, CNC in education.

I still get a bit knocked out by this technology. It genuinely excites me that within a matter of hours, someone has offered some sort of response to a new website and that the response came to the customer.

I realise though that for many this is all a bit difficult to buy into. However if one looks at it as a new ingredient that is part of the mix, adding too rather than replacing then it becomes easier to understand. In an ideal world we would open our metaphorical doors and wait for the customers to come to us. I believe that Social Networking can help guide people to your open doors.

I am not aware of any evidence that Stoneage people sat around waiting for the Online Delivery Van from the supermarket of their choice. In the past if we wanted something we had to physically go and get it. Nowadays thing are different. We can, if we choose, veg in front of the screen and make the goods come to us.

The same goes for news. Yes there is still a town crier in Topsham, where I live, he has a nice little label on the back of his nice little Rover. On Saturday we go to the paper shop because it makes us feel that the weekend is with us. True we could turn the telly on for news, but, now with computers and RSS feeds news can come to us, on demand, in the flavour that we desire.

We also get notification of our friends’ lives to compare, contrast and fret over with Facebook. We get those necessary minute by minute updates via Twitter and interesting oh so essential insights through blogs. We can feed our (British) obsession for the weather and convey our day to day endeavours to the wider world through a fully synched Google-iCal-Nokia-Suite-calendar-widget-thingy.

Then we can sit worrying because we know we have forgotten some aspect of this helpful technology but don’t know which. In the past we worried about the gas or the tap being left on now I suppose it is ‘is my firewall operating?’ We can also add a certain piquancy to our annoyance when the various online alarms start going off just after the meeting that we have just set off for has been cancelled, via text of course.

But all this technology can be useful and fun, it just needs a bit of management and this is where start pages come in.
read more>

I have a number of domains and have recently started using Twitter. In addition I have a Facebook presence and network through Linkedin. With Linkedin I am part of a group as part of my membership of the Chartered Society of Designers. All of this would of course totally fail the Grandpa Test, to be honest my son thinks it is a load of tosh. However I have recently been Skyped by my father so he may be more receptive. The simple truth is that many people think it is all twaddle and quite simply don’t get it at all.

Last Friday I sat trying to explain Twitter to a customer who’s website we are currently developing and to be fair it is a hard thing to explain. The irony is that it was she who had first suggested Twitter for her website and I only joined the community to learn more.

Yesterday I Googled my name (I Google therefore I am?), my Twitter details came up third in the rankings. I am a convert.

Further searches brought my Linkedin status, references to my Twitter activity and this blog in the top six. I have only recently re-visted Linkedin and this self-hosted blog has been up for less than a month. Not bad, not bad at all.

About six months ago I couldn’t find myself through a reverse search on Google at all, I just didn’t appear either through my own name or as Design Credo. Of course there was a simple reason to this, my Design Credo website was set up quite some time ago and things change. Around the time we developed the site I took a break from design and moved into education, the site wasn’t attended to although it has remained hosted throughout. When we set the site up we didn’t really attend to making the site search engine friendly and anyway conditions were very different then.

So, any ideas what started here in 1998?

read more>

Having just read an RSS feed about designing daily I am feeling a little pressured to at least write something here. The simple truth is that Christmas is the mother of all time thieves and there is only so much time. As I said the simple truth is…

It is a great suggestion, design something daily. When I first started ‘designing’ I used to make up projects as a way of developing skills. The bottom line is that I like designing, and taking photographs, and playing the guitar, and learning, (the list could continue). The reality is that the guitar hasn’t been picked up for a while and I have just taken the bicycle wheel to be sorted but although I am (rather sporadically) trying to maintain a swimming regime I couldn’t honestly say that I couldn’t squeeze a bit more in.
read more>

How many Freudians does it take to screw in a bulb?

Two.

One to screw in. One to hold the cock..father..LADDER!!

Seen yesterday on Twitter